Jeff Winkler (admin)

About 180 DeKalb County school employees are in Hollywood this week at a conference on how to improve academically troubled schools. The trip will cost $380,000.

Officials argue that the money for the conference is not coming from DeKalb property taxes but from federal funds that are intended, in part, to pay for training that will lead to improved school performance.

But the expenditure comes as the district is trying to trim $56 million from its budget. Officials have proposed teacher furloughs, slashing pre-kindergarten classes and cutting programs to save money.

For a lot less than that they could have gone out into the Georgia countryside, and turned over stills, and studied real slugs squirming around in the spilled mash, and learned more than they will in LA. But I guess saving money was not very high on their priority list.